Day 20

Last day.

We packed the night before to minimize the chances of leaving anything in the apartment and to be certain to catch our early train to Rome.

Early in the morning while the others slept, I snuck in one last visit to the basilica in the main square. It’s one of the largest in Italy, and notable because the exterior remains unfinished. Inside, the stark vastness take your breath away. The stations of the cross, though large in actual size, resemble piles of shiny coins in a large cave.

I then walked over to the street market to purchase mini strawberries and baked goods, which we devoured with passion. After breakfast, we loaded up, tossed the flowers into the trash, and the apartment returned to its barren self. We then toted our luggage across Bologna to the train station, a march that would be exceeded in duration by our walk up and down the hills of Rome to our hotel.

The weather in Rome was perfect, seventy degrees with a

slight breeze and just a touch of humidity. After a trip to the Pantheon (you’ve gotta love that place), we decided to go to a real Roman restaurant. Jenna had squid and boiled peas and I had octopus with lemon, tomato, and rocket. Let’s just say this about our eight legged friends -- too chewy by half. The boys, once again, played it safe -- pasta with parmesan.

Our original plan had been to return to the Forum for a

longer visit, but owing to the great weather, we decided to take it easy and meander (that would be Italian for "stopped and got gelato") over to Saint Peter’s. The Cathedral was incredible. We were so overwhelmed by the scale and grandeur that we hardly noticed The Pieta by Michaelangelo.

The boys had lots of energy. They had great fun jumping over concrete barriers in the main square. I wonder if children do that when the Pope speaks? I doubt it. Then off to the "Sixteenth" chapel as Cooper liked to call it. After nearly a mile of corridors filled with art, maps, tapestries, and then entire rooms painted by Raphael and his assistants, we arrived at the chapel. Jenna wisely had us sit down on a bench and just try to soak in the ceiling and enormous painting, The Last Judgment, on the wall. The latter features a self portrait of Michelangelo in a drapped cloak that resembles Voldemort.

As we sat, noticed that the noise level in the room would slowly rise as people got more and more enthused and captivated until one of the guards would loudly tell us to be quiet, then the cycle would begin anew. It was like a storm brewing. I've never seen, or I should say never heard, anything like it in a museum. I guess the room just begs you to chat up your neighbor. Mysterious.

We had miles to go to go before we slept. We had to cross an entire country by foot to get to our hotel (Okay, it's a very small country, but still.) I misread the map not once, not twice, not three times, but four times enroute to a hip pizza joint overlooking a shrine to Augustus. We never made it. We'd been walking for six hours (note that this follows the two great luggage marches earlier in the day), so my worn out family suggested that we stop and eat at the pizza place right behind us and try to determine our location. In an epic bit of serendipity, we were only four blocks from our hotel.

So, we sat, rested our sore feet and had one last round of pizzas, a fitting end to a great trip.